The survey asks residents and visitors how often they frequent downtown establishments; whether they like back-in parking; and if they favor converting LBJ Drive and Guadalupe Street from one-way to two-way traffic among other downtown issues. City officials and staff will use information gathered from the survey to plan future improvements to the Central Business District.

During a workshop on Oct. 14, the city council decided to postpone a decision on the one-way/two-way conversion until staff conducted more public outreach. In addition to the online survey, city staff will canvass downtown businessowners door-to-door to gauge support for the proposed change.

For information, contact the city’s engineering department at 512-393-8130.

I never understood the value in this proposal.
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The ONLY reason I come into downtown on LBJ, is because I am forced over, when Guadalupe becomes one-way. If I could drive straight in and out on Guadalupe, I would. This would decrease the chances of me passing by businesses on LBJ, not increase, as some have argued.
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I sure wouldn’t take LBJ out, to the highway, through a school zone, and onto the access road, where there is no light.
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What’s more, what is going to happen with the people who can’t manage the ridiculous back-in parking? You may notice that many of them block two lanes of traffic, as they attempt to more or less get into a space properly. Will that be better, with them blocking cars traveling in two directions?

Two-way streets are a bad idea, and worse for pedestrians. It is already a little sketchy crossing a couple of those streets when you are only worried about traffic coming in one direction, and it becomes infinitely more difficult when the sun goes down and the drivers BAC goes up. Plus, let’s quit changing things. The downtown merchants had to deal with a loss of business to redo the parking to back-in, which now nobody likes. I’m sure two-way would go the same.

When I took the poll, it definitely seems to be nudging the taker to select items that the Code SMTX folks would prefer, like two-way streets. You have to deny the agenda in waves. For me, offer more parking off the square and get more people on foot; keep the streets the way they are; stop issuing bar licenses so you can diversify the offerings and appeal to a broader population of shoppers; and relocate the city offices to downtown to increase the day-time users and foot traffic.